This invention relates to a system for reproducing AV information, and more particularly to a reproducing system having an external access function that acquires related information connected with the reproduced stream information from resources on a computer network.
With the recent development of large-capacity DVDs (digital video disks), various reproducing systems for making use of multimedia information, including digital video information (including still pictures) and digital audio information, have been proposed. Hereinafter, digital video information (including still pictures) and digital audio information are generally called AV information.
For example, the reproducing system is an apparatus that has a DVD drive and corresponds a video player or a video deck with the function of reproducing the AV information recorded on a DVD set in the DVD drive and displaying the reproduced information on a television set or the display (or screen) of a personal computer.
The AV information encoded by a moving-picture coding scheme known as the MPEG (moving picture coding experts group) 2 is generally multiplexed with audio information and the multiplexed information is recorded on a DVD. From the DVD, the reproducing system reproduces stream information in specific coding streams (or consecutive bit data strings) corresponding to the specified title (for example, movie), thereby reproducing the AV information on the screen consecutively.
With the recent development of computers and multimedia technology, various multimedia-compatible computer systems have been developed. This type of computer system is provided with the function of reproducing moving pictures and audio data as well as text data and graphics data.
As multimedia computers have been used widely, DVDs have lately attracted attention as a new storage medium to replace the CD-ROM. One side of a single DVD-ROM medium can store about 4.7 Gbyte of data, about seven times the present CD-ROM. Therefore, about 9.4 Gbyte of data can be stored on both sides of the DVD-ROM medium. Use of the DVD-ROM medium enables moving pictures, including movies containing a large volume of video information, to be reproduced with a high quality.
Recently, there has been a great demand for highly sophisticated and profitable information handling, by imparting the interactiveness or responsiveness to digital data of, for example, moving pictures, used in the above-described reproduction system or computer system.
An object of the present invention is to provide a reproducing system which reproduces AV information from a storage medium, such as a DVD, and which is capable of not only reproducing normal titles but also easily acquiring related information connected with specific stream information from resources on a computer network.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a reproducing system capable of acquiring the optimum related information that meets specific conditions, including the attributes of the system, when the related information is acquired from resources on a computer network.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a system which enables DVD video titles to be combined with the Internet by an effective use and simple expansion of the DVD standard without changing the standard and which realizes a new service where DVD video titles are combined with hypermedia contents, such as HTML files, provided on the Internet.
According to the present invention, there is provided a reproducing apparatus comprising: acquiring means for acquiring stream data received from a medium and access information associated with the stream data; reproducing means for reproducing the acquired stream data; input means for accepting an instruction from a user; referring means for referring to an external information corresponding to the stream data acquired at a point when an input is accepted, on the basis of the access information associated with the stream data, in the case where there is such an input from the input means during the reproduction of the stream data; and outputting means for outputting the external information referred by the referring means.
According to the apparatus, the user may get not only information reproduced from the stream data recorded in the medium such as a DVD but also external information output by the outputting means.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.